


& you fall inside a hole you couldn't see.

by Hemoptysis (Chzu)



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Canon Compliant, Captivity, Episode: s05e15 Granite State, Gen, Heavy Angst, Kidnapping, Looks bad Todd, Ownership, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Season 5B, Slavery, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 06:25:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17503343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chzu/pseuds/Hemoptysis
Summary: "What had Mr. White done, in the end of it all? He'd given the home address of his ex girlfriend to Nazis."Picks up where Andrea's death scene leaves off.





	& you fall inside a hole you couldn't see.

**Author's Note:**

> some people..... write soul-crushing, devastating angst...... to cope

_“I mean, instant family. What more can you ask?”_

Jesse recalled how he once referred to Andrea and her son Brock in the past. He recalled exactly how he felt when he met her, the attraction he felt admittedly primal and driven by self-interest during a particular time in his life that he'd slipped up and done the wrong thing. He recalled the surprise he felt upon seeing Brock for the first time – the realization that the woman he was trying to get hooked on crystal meth was a _mother_. It grounded Jesse, reminded him of his morals, and not at all in a bad way.

In fact, he loved it, loved the familial bond that came with dating Andrea, the sense of responsibility and confidence that came with being with her, with spending time with her son. From the early days of their relationship, when Jesse would impress Brock with cool science tricks at restaurant tables and pick up toys for him on his way to visits, he loved the kid like he was his own. Even with all of the pain that Mr. White put him through, coming home to play video games or watch cheerful movies with Andrea and her son made his days so much brighter. Jesse never wanted it to end. He'd only broken it off with her because of Mr. White's suggestion.

And what had Mr. White done, in the end of it all? He'd given the home address of his ex girlfriend to _Nazis_ . Of course, they had taunted him with the knowledge, had kept him terrified all along, but never did it cross his mind that _this_ would've happened when he tried to escape.

Jesse was inconsolable on the ride back to the compound. Not that anyone in the vehicle was remotely interested in consoling him. He cried, screamed, thrashed against his bindings and against Todd, who grabbed him and held him tight like he was less a human and more of an object getting in the way. Or, maybe _object_ was too generous a description, considering the _nickname_ they all threw at him with disgust.

“Woo! You sure know how to squeal, don't you, _rat_?” Jack hooted from the front of the car, about as gleeful and entertained as a sick, racist, murderer, pyscho piece of shit could get.

The other men laughed at his words – or, to be more realistic, laughed at Jesse, who was far too hysterical to even process what they were saying. The memory of Andrea falling limp to the ground repeated in his mind, over and over again. Jesse had been powerless to stop it, no amount of screaming or slamming his head against the window enough to warn her.

Then there was their twisted, heartbreaking reminder, _‘there's still the kid.’_ If Jesse didn't comply, they wouldn't hesitate to kill Brock – sweet, innocent Brock, who'd near-miraculously survived Mr. White's poisoning, only to end up without a mother, made an orphan. The thought made Jesse double over wailing.

Jack had quickly grown impatient with this grief. “All right, Toddy, you wanna shut your little _bitch boy_ up?” He snarled, clearly no longer amused as he gestured toward the world outside of the van. “If someone out there hears this pussy crying, we're gonna be fucked.”

To those words, Jesse thought, _God, if only._

Todd nodded his head, speaking like an empty, dead-inside scolded child. “Sure, uncle Jack. Sorry about that.”

Jesse's sobbing came to an abrupt, agonizing halt when Todd reached over to pinch his nose. Crying turned to desperate gasping. Suddenly, it felt as if they were waterboarding him as he tried to breathe with the gag wrapped tightly around his head. He fought against it, whimpering and wordlessly begging for Todd to stop before Todd placed a hand over his mouth as well, effectively cutting off his air supply.

“ _Ssshhhh_ ,” he heard Todd hush him. Jesse quickly jerked his head toward him, eyes wide and face red as he struggled for air, his desperate fight dying as his body struggled to get the air it needed to function. Todd watched back with no discernible expression. “I'm gonna need you to be quiet now, Jesse. You think you can do that for me?”

The world around Jesse was fading and blurring quickly from his asphyxiation. For a moment, in a fucked up way, he even wondered if he'd find some escape in it. Maybe Todd would accidentally suffocate him to death, right here and now, and get it all over with. Perhaps Jesse, in all his misery and despair, would do the honor of dying at this very moment, which was far more preferable than living the life he had been living. Then, Brock would never have to worry about dying (or worse) at the hands of these monsters. Jesse couldn’t attempt to escape again if he was given the final, ultimate escape of death. His fighting came to an end as the men around him faded, under the vision of blurry, dark shapes in his eyes and the freeing sound of white noise.

That was, until Todd pulled his hand back, and Jesse's lungs gasped instinctively, taking in what little air could pass through a congested nose and the thick fabric in his mouth. He was still in the process of coming to, when Todd's hand on his head reminded him of where he was and the fate he was sentenced to.

A look of sheer terror covered Jesse’s face at the feeling of being touched. A sick feeling rose in the back of his throat, like he was ready to throw up at the sensation. “Please, stop,” he tried to beg as Todd rubbed his head. His words didn't come out as words, however – just hoarse, muffled sounds. It wasn’t anything that anyone could understand. He cried as Todd continued to pet him.

“That's a good boy,” Todd told Jesse, like a clueless, soulless child stroking his pet that he'd just nearly strangled to death with his leash. As if to prove something, he looked to Jack. “See, Uncle Jack?”

Jesse couldn't quite catch Jack's expression through the tears, though he had an idea of the twisted contentment that surely showed on that horrible man's face. “Well done showing him his place, Toddy. God damn, I couldn't hear myself think over all that crybaby shit.”

One of the men in the back seat (Kenny? Did his name really matter that much?) gave Jesse a ‘playful’ punch in the side, knocking out more of the air he'd been working to get back into his system. As a result, Jesse let out a pained noise and slumped further against Todd, a person he wouldn't want ever to be this close to, even if there were no more people left on the planet.

The world went dark again as Todd stopped petting him and instead slipped a bag over Jesse's head. After that, it was nothing but darkness and the sound of the men surrounding him jesting and joyfully mocking Jesse’s pain. In the darkness, Jesse pictured Andrea’s face, imagining her reaching forward to take him away from this never ending nightmare. If _only_ Todd had just _killed_ him those few moments ago. Maybe he would have been able to reunite with her, if he even ended up in the same afterlife.

He didn't know the drive was over until he heard the car come to a halt, the sound of gates opening a familiar one that raised his heart rate to dangerous levels. Presumably, the vehicle pulled into Jack's compound. Jesse didn’t really need to see the arrival to know where he was.

“All right,” Jack said from the direction of the front seat, eager as ever to berate Jesse after everything. “Field trip's over, boys. I think we got the point across pretty damn well. You wanna get this rat the hell out of my van? I sure as shit don't need him stinkin' up the place.”

Jesse let out a shaky whine as some unseeable person grabbed him, yanking him toward the door. He recalled that fateful day in the desert that the gang took him away, after receiving the devastating news that Walter White – _Mr. White_ , the man he'd trusted (and even, unfortunately, sought the approval of) for so goddamn long – had willingly let Jane die. Specifically, Jesse was reminded of how on that day, he had no fight left in him. The struggle to survive had just ended immediately when Walter gave him the news. Jesse, utterly devastated and blown away, had just let the men drag him off like a fucking rag doll, hopeless and helpless. It was a familiar feeling. In fact, it was the same way he felt right now.

Suddenly, he was falling, and his body crashed against the gravelly ground below, falling face first. The bag on his head did nothing to protect him from the pebbles that grated against his face. As if that hadn't been painful enough, a swift kick to his side from one of the men certainly did the job in keeping him down. The humiliation he felt was nothing next to the guilt and shame, however, of letting Andrea die. Jack was right about what he’d told Jesse in the car, right before it happened. This _was_ on Jesse. The sounds of laughter echoed throughout the night as the men presumably stood over him. Not that he could see where they were exactly.

A pair of hands brought him off of the ground, though they were anything but gentle, squeezing his arms tightly enough to leave lasting bruises. The familiar jingling of chains filled his ears as someone grabbed his hands from behind his back, undoing the rope they'd used to tie his hands together. Much to his own heartbreaking disappointment, Jesse didn't even fight when his hands were brought up in front of him, locking handcuffs back into place and getting the same treatment with his ankles. The bag was yanked from his head, and Jesse was greeted face-to-face with Todd once again, who bored deep into Jesse's eyes with his own, lifeless gaze.

Jesse stared back at him, and though he was unable to speak, the hateful glare on his face, so loathing that it contorted his scarred features, said far more than words could. He had never been so repulsed by another human being before. If he wasn’t terrified of the consequences, he would’ve tried to kill Todd right where he stood.

Predictably, Todd wasn't affected by the angry look at all. As always, Jesse couldn’t pinpoint a single thing that he must’ve thought or felt. Of course, Todd wasn’t remotely guilty. He wasn’t going to lose a wink of sleep over what he’d done, and it was clear by how he stared Jesse down with no remorse. Jesse probably hadn’t even been the first person he’d so utterly traumatized. He was probably one of dozens.

Grabbing his arm, Todd began to tug Jesse back toward the same pit he'd tried so desperately to escape from. Of course, Jesse had no choice but to follow, his gait an unsteady waddle. With all of the time he had spent with his legs chained together, one might think that getting back into them would be an easy enough task. It really wasn’t, though. Todd spoke with no emotion in his voice as he pulled Jesse further. “Let's get you to bed now, Jesse. I think you've learned your lesson.”

 _Lesson_. That's what Todd considered this, scolding Jesse like a misbehaving dog or a child who’d taken a cookie out of the cookie jar. Again, that sick feeling rose to the back of his throat and threatened to boil over. He kept quiet, though, as not to agitate his throat any more than it already was. When Todd swung open the door to his cage, Jesse looked back down at it, his breathing unsteady and erratic at the mere sight. He'd tried so hard to get out of there, to escape from his own personal Hell, and here he was again, getting thrown back into it. Back to sleeping on the ground. Back to shitting and pissing in a bucket. Back to cooking meth for these disgusting monsters. Back to slavery.

Todd guided him back down, holding Jesse steady as he climbed pit once again, all too familiar with the challenge of climbing while chained up. As soon as Jesse was back in, he stumbled away from Todd as quickly as he could, needing to get as far from him as possible. He staggered backwards, crashing painfully against the wall. Todd pursued him.

“Oh, man. I’m real sorry about your girlfriend, Jesse,” Todd apologized with fictitious sympathy, causing Jesse to let out a sob he'd been holding since the empty-eyed bastard nearly suffocated him. Paying no mind, Todd continued, raising his voice slightly to compete with Jesse’s muffled crying. “We had to teach you a lesson, you know? You can't go running away from us like that. We need you. You _belong_ here.”

Jesse let out a broken, horrified scream in response, his attempt to refute Todd’s statement. _No_ , he didn’t belong here. His body instantly went rigid as Todd reached forward, grabbing his face. Caressing Jesse's scarred, tear-covered cheeks, Todd gave a creepy expression that vaguely resembled a smile, shaking his head. “Are you going to behave, from now on?”

Was the fuck kind of question was that? Did Jesse have any option to answer here, always? Feeling a painful tightness in his throat, Jesse stared back, forcing himself to nod his head. He really, really didn’t want to, but he’d do anything to keep these horrible people away from Brock. Todd reached behind Jesse's head, untying the gag and pulling it out of his mouth.

“I want to hear you say it.”

Jesse _closed_ his eyes, clenching his sore jaw as his body continued to tremble something fierce. He didn't _want_ to. _God_ , he didn't want to. He wished that they would've just killed him the moment they caught him escaping – no, he wished they would've done it _sooner_. Perhaps in the desert, Mr. White initially wanted him to die. If they could've just ended his life back then, Andrea would still be alive. Brock would still have a mother.

Honestly, maybe it should’ve happened before that, but that was a road Jesse couldn’t go down very far when Todd was mouth-breathing on his face.

Todd placed a hand firmly on his shoulder before squeezing painfully and causing Jesse to let out a yelp. He was going to get an answer, whether Jesse wanted to, or not.

“Come on, Jesse.”

Heartbroken as ever, Jesse nodded again. “Y– yeah. I'm gonna behave. I swear, man.” His voice cracked as he spoke, hoarse from so much screaming. He knew when to take the path of least resistance. He knew when to submit, even when doing so overwhelmed his heart with dread and anxiety. Anything to keep Brock safe. Jesse nodded again. “Just – please, _please_ don't hurt him. Don't hurt the kid.”

“He's safe, as long as you're here with me.” Todd placed his hand on Jesse's head yet again, rubbing his hair and leaving it uncomfortably disheveled. The disgusting way Todd treated at him only made him cry harder, and like a horrific chain reaction, Jesse's crying only prompted Todd to settle down beside Jesse, pulling him close to hold him as he wept. Jesse, so utterly revolted and grief-stricken, had no option but to tolerate the horrifying, empty attempts at comfort.

They didn't let him see the stars anymore, after that night.


End file.
